Veg Manchurian

When I lived in Amravati, India we’d go to several amazing vegetarian restaurants that specialized in Indo-Chinese dishes. Each place made Veg Manchurian differently, and in my travels I’ve had about twenty different styles of it, some more Indian, some more Chinese. But most quite wonderful. I experimented at home in the kitchen and asked as many family cooks as I could how to make it best.

I even got into the kitchen at one of our favorite Vegetarian Indian restaurants with the young Chinese-Specialty cook I’d befriended and did some spying and interrogating. I got all kinds of answers. Most of the recipes online were awful, calling for lame cooking measures like using ketchup or MSG for the sauce. The best part about researching Indo-Chinese recipes online is reading the comments and forums as Indians fight with one another on the ‘authenticity’ — of a hybrid dish!

Veg Manchurian – Gemüsebällchen auf Indochinesischer Art

(Rezept erscheint demnächst auf deutsch!)

It took a few tries but I knew I’d hit it right when at the school one day I opened up my shiny metal tiffin lunchbox and shared with some of the teacher ladies. Actually, it wasn’t when they first smiled or told me it was ‘so tasty’ (‘too tasty!’). It was at the end of the day when they asked me when I’d be making it again.

Add 1/2 chopped green pepper to sauce a few minutes before you add the water and flour mixture to thicken. Hey, this is a hybrid… Go Wild! Add curry leaves, cumin or coriander if you want! After all, this is your Indo-Chinese now.

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For my birthday, V and I were out in Hicksville, Long Island. There’s a large Indian community, with one of the best south Indian restaurants I’ve been to. Across the street is a Chinese-Indian place. Next time you’re in NYC, we have to figure a way to get out there. The whole town is amazing.

Wow… a Chinese-Indian / Indo-Chinese place outside of India? That’s cool! We had some friends in Amravati that opened a place called “Chinese Chaska” (Chinese Taste) and I was thinking how cool it’d be to have (or even open!) an Indo-Chinese place in a European or American city. I’m sure in Hicksville, with the Indian community there, there’s an eager audience.